Los Angeles to Host 2028 Olympic Summer Games, Paris Gets 2024

"La La Land" will have to wait just a little longer to bring home the gold.

Los Angeles will be the host of the 2028 Summer Olympics instead of the 2024 games, officials confirmed on Monday.

"Hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games for the first time in 44 years is a golden opportunity for LA," Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson said in a statement on Monday.

After reaching a deal with the International Olympic Committee, the Olympics will return to the City of Angeles in 2028, the third time since it first hosted in 1932.

A Los Angeles' Olympic bid committee rendering shows how L.A. Stadium at Hollywood Park would look like after receiving an Olympics-style makeover in this image released in Los Angeles on May 8, 2017.LA 2024 / via Reuters

"In 1932 and 1984, the Olympic Games helped to transform our city for the better — not just through bricks and mortar, but through new opportunities for our communities to watch, play and benefit from sport," Wesson said. "Over the next 11 years and beyond, we want to bring those benefits to young people across this city on an unprecedented scale."

IOC President Thomas Bach called Los Angeles an "excellent" candidate for the 2028 games in a statement posted to the committee's webstie.

"The IOC welcomes this decision of the Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Candidature Committee. and we are pleased to release the Host City contract 2028 in a transparent and timely manner," Bach said.

He added that the decision to make Los Angeles the games' 2028 host would be ratified during a meeting in September in Peru.

The agreement, which has been in the works for several months, means Paris will host the 2024 Summer Olympics, following Tokyo in 2020.

Typically the IOC doesn’t confirm two cities as hosts at once, but decided make the move rather than rule out a strong contender.

The decision had not been expected until September.

California and the city of Los Angeles have agreed to provide financial backing in case of cost overruns, although the city’s bid will not rely on public financing. It is predicted the games will make the city money, which can be put toward youth sports — as was done during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

The IOC convened on July 11 and 12 and agreed that Paris and Los Angeles would be the host cities for the two future games, but didn’t announce who would hold which year’s event. Following the vote, Paris was seen as the frontrunner for 2024.

The two cities and the IOC struck a three-way deal to ensure the dates of the games would be locked in. If the deal fell through, it was possible that the 2028 games would be up for grabs again.

But following the announcement that the two cities would host the events, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo seemed eager to make the agreement work, ensuring that both cities would host the games regardless of the order.

"Both of us will find it more and more difficult to convince cities — whether it's Paris, Los Angeles or other American cities — to really go into this process if one of us gets turned down," Garcetti told the Associated Press earlier this month.

Garcetti hinted that L.A. was not likely going to host the 2024 games, saying last week that the 2024 bid "is not probably most likely to happen."

Boston, Budapest and several other cities pulled themselves out of consideration for the 2024 games after facing opposition over the high costs.

Los Angeles used this depict itself as the sensible choice because it would need to build no major new venues and would be able to show the world the Games could be staged efficiently and economically. However, the city seemed more willing to wait until 2028 than Paris.

The French capital was seen as the sentimental choice, with the event falling 100 years after it last hosted the Olympics.